


First Contact

by RedThreads



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, I had to get this out before I was proved seriously wrong by the show, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, first contact since the end of Daredevil season 2, i am SUCH a sucker for these two, i am so excited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 15:59:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedThreads/pseuds/RedThreads
Summary: Karen hasn't stopped exposing all of the injustice and evil in Hell's Kitchen, and she hasn't seen Frank since the night she saw him on the rooftop. Pissing off the bad guys has it's consequences, and it might be the end for Karen. Unless she get's really, really lucky.





	First Contact

Four months. Four months had passed since Matt had done his big reveal, since Karen had her life threatened once again, since she had last seen – no, she didn’t think about that anymore. Four months and six days, but who was counting? She wasn’t. Karen Page was just walking quickly down the street in a section of the city she considered hers, wondering if her life was ever going to return to normal. If she was ever going to be able to stop looking over her shoulder, to stop being suspicious of every person who took the same turn as her.

Granted, it didn’t help that Karen hadn’t stopped writing for the New York Bulletin and she wasn’t exactly doing fluff pieces. Her research had gotten her into hot water on more than one occasion, and both Matt and Foggy had tried to get her to be more cautious. Foggy wanted her to move into an apartment building with security. When she had just laughed, thinking about how she just barely scraped by now, he’d very sweetly offered to let her stay with him in his place. Karen had declined, not wanting to cramp his style. Matt had tried talking her into any other kind of job, but stopped when she had quietly asked him if he could stop wearing his mask. Their friendship had gotten oddly better since he had revealed his massive secret, but there were still rocky moments. He’d followed her for a few days after that, but Karen had read him the riot act. She was not going to put up with being stalked, even for the best intentions. She knew he still watched over her occasionally, but she could live with that.

Karen was able to admit that knowing Daredevil had her back more often than not was reassuring. She still would write the articles she did even if he wasn’t there because there was something clawing at her insides, making demands on her heart, and forcing her to bring light to dark corners of her little part of the world. It was for Ben, for Daniel Fisher, for everyone who had died because someone thought their agenda was more important than human life. It was for the nights she woke up with screams choking her and the blood of the past all over her hands.

Tonight, she knew she didn’t have any masked friends watching her. She had gotten a break on a child slavery ring and given the information to Matt, so he was down at the docks, waiting to take out the people in charge of the latest shipment. These were cases where a part of Karen wondered what she would do if she was still in contact with Fr… him. The cops were positive that he was dead, but Karen had been at one too many crime scenes since then that made her think of the diner. She knew who she had seen on the rooftop the night she’d been kidnapped. But she hadn’t seen him since.

Karen forced all of those thoughts out of her head and concentrated on getting home. She was later than she preferred and was starting to wish she had splurged on a cab. It was a cold April night to be walking, and while she knew Daredevil was taking care of the bad guys at the dock, something inside of her refused to settle. She kept glancing in the shop windows she passed, trying to make sense of the shadows behind her without being too obvious. She had her eye on two guys who had been trailing her for a bit, but they looked more like friends walking home from a night out, laughing and bumping into each other, rather than watching her with intensity. They turned left when she turned right, and Karen forced her shoulders to relax.

That was when the van squealed around the corner, gunning for her. Karen began to run, heels and all, but she was no match for the horsepower. The driver’s side door popped open, slamming into Karen’s back, and sending her to the ground as pain seared up her back and shoulders. Then her head connected to the sidewalk and everything went black.

~*~

Karen came back to consciousness with the same speed and violence as she left it as she was thrown against a hard object and the world around her came to an abrupt stop. She opened her eyes to see that she had been thrown against the wall of the van when it had braked sharply, the two men of indiscriminate origin cursing out the driver as they had to brace themselves. “Fuck you guys, just grab the bitch and let’s get this done,” the driver responded, popping his seat belt loose and hopping out of the vehicle. Karen had a brief thought of fighting back against the two men, but when she tried to rise, she found her arms were restrained behind her back with what was probably duct tape. One man opened the sliding door while the other reached towards her. Karen kicked out, but he just grabbed her ankle and used that to drag her out of the van. Karen cried out as she hit the hard ground, and she realized just how much pain she was in, adrenaline and all.

“It’s only gonna get worse from here, ya nosy whore,” the man who opened the door snarled at her, a gold earring glinting in the artificial light of a security light. Karen tried to get her bearings, hoping they were close to the docks, but it was just an old storage place, with row after row of forgotten storage units. Nothing but concrete and rusting steel, and blocks from the docks. Fear, an ever present bird trapped in the cage of her mind, stopped fluttering its wings and began slamming against the bars. There was no one coming. No one.

Karen struggled to her scraped knees as the driver slid one of the storage units open and gestured at Earring and the other man, who was wearing a bright blue shirt. As they grabbed her under the arms and dragged her towards the unit, Karen had a wild thought that she was going to die surrounded by Beanie Babies and baby clothes and nearly choked on a hysterical laugh. Blue Shirt shot her a dirty look as a half-laugh escaped her and she found herself shoved down on top of some dusty boxes.

“No chair? Did you guys really think this kidnapping thing out all the way?” Karen couldn’t stop herself from asking, her fear making her angry.

A hard slap from Earring had her head ringing and his muttered, “Let’s just kill her now and be done with this bullshit,” had any other sassy comments from her drying up. Karen turned her head back to see the three men staring at her. Blue Shirt was leering at her, his eyes running over her disheveled blouse and skirt that had ridden up to her mid-thigh when she’d been tossed on the boxes. The driver was studying her with the intensity one gave a frustrating math problem, and Earring kept shifting his hard gaze from Karen’s face to the gun clearly visible in the driver’s waistband.

“We need to find out just how much she knows, first. Besides… can’t hurt to have let Eli have a little fun,” the driver said, grinning maliciously as Blue Shirt practically vibrated at his words. Karen couldn’t stop the shudder that wracked her body at his words, and he let out a belch of laughter as her lips curled in disgust.

Earring grunted, moving to pull a cigarette from a pack and lighting it. “We aren’t going to get anything from her but screams once Eli starts. How’s ‘bout you and me take turns beating it out of her first,” he said, his tone shockingly placid.

Eli, the one in the blue shirt, whined, but the driver nodded. “Works for me. Hear that, reporter bitch?” he said, turning his attention back to Karen as he pulled his gun from his waistband and held it loosely in her direct line of sight. “Make this easy on yourself and tell us everything now and I’ll put a bullet through your pretty little head. Eli’s still gonna fuck ya, but you’ll care a lot less.”

Nausea swirled, and Karen tried to push herself backwards, as far away from them as possible, but sagging cardboard resisted her attempts. It was all she could do to keep the whimpers trapped in her throat. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction, but had a bone-deep fear that she’d be screaming all too soon.

Her attention was caught on Earring as he sucked hard on his cigarette, the tip glowing an angry red as he moved towards her. Like a snake, he struck out, grabbing her arm in a hard grasp and pulling her up slightly as she fought to get away. “What do you know about the kids?” he hissed, holding the cigarette tip just above where her collarbone created a hollow, close enough to the soft skin that Karen could feel the intense heat.

“Go to hell,” she spit out, her eyes as hot as the cigarette. A strangled scream broke loose as he touched the lit tip to her flesh, sending flames of pain shooting into her.

“Try again,” he told her, sucking deeply on the cigarette once more while the two men behind them laughed. This time he held the glowing tip just above her cheek, his hand resting almost lover-like against her face. She could see the enjoyment written all over his face and knew she could tell him whatever he wanted to hear and he wouldn’t stop. Karen just gritted her teeth and waited for the next blast of burning pain. Instead, music started pouring from the van behind them, a classic Earth, Wind, and Fire song that had Karen’s eyes widening in shock. Earring dropped her back to the cardboard, instantly alert. “What the fuck is this?” he asked, as he scuttled to the far side of storage unit, out of direct sight of the entrance.

The driver spun around, his gun pointed as he looked for any sign of danger. Eli just edged closer to Karen, licking his lips as his eyes darted from her to all around. There was a muffled report, and the driver crumpled, the concrete beneath him instantly soaking with blood. Eli lunged towards Karen, swinging her around so she was shielding him, one arm wrapped tightly around her throat, the other holding her duct taped arms down in a painful hold that had her crying out. “Shut up, shut up, shutup,” he hissed in her ear. “Come out, you dumb fucker, or she dies, I swear to God,” he shouted, as Earring tried to get a better view of the opening, a gun pulled from where it had been holstered against his back.

There was barely a pause before a form moved forward from the shadows, and Karen let out a shuddering gasp at the silhouette that had no right being so familiar. Black work pants tucked into dark combat boots, broad shoulders covered in a black trench coat that hit mid thigh, gaped to reveal the stark white skull spray painted over a black flak vest, all made even more threatening by the Kimber Warrior pistol in his hand and the rifle strapped to his hip. Karen saw nothing but his face, the sharply carved lines from his broad cheekbones to his squared off jaw, his pugilist’s nose, broken and slightly flattened in a way that suited his face like no other, and those dark, dark eyes that promised death. Only a fool believed they could escape a man who looked at them like that. That was the face of the Punisher.

Earring moved to bring his gun up, and the Punisher shot him once in the chest, and then in the head as he fell, all while never taking his eyes off of Karen and Eli. “Fuck!” screamed Eli, his grip tightening even further on Karen to where she began to choke. “Shit, shit, if...if you want her to live, you bet-” he didn’t get a chance to finish, the Punisher shifted his pistol just slightly and hot blood splattered the side of Karen’s face. She fell to the ground, the dead weight of her captor forcing her down.

Karen could hear someone gasping as if they were dying, sucking in air desperately and letting it out in a high, thin scream, but she didn’t know who it was. All she knew was that the man who had planned to rape her, dead or alive, was on top of her. He was dead, in fact his blood was sliding down her face, but she didn’t care, she needed him off her right now! She began twisting and kicking desperately, trying to get out from under him with her mind intact.

The weight lifted off of her, and she found herself being sat upright. Suddenly, she was so desperate to get the lunatic’s blood off of her, she began scraping her cheek against her shirt, still hearing the awful gasping somewhere in the distance.

“Ma’am.”

The voice was so familiar, rough and dark, but so far off. Karen tried to use her hands, but they were still stuck behind her and she wanted to scream.

“Ma’am, please stop.”

At that she looked up, right up into Frank Castle’s face. He wasn’t the Punisher to her right then, he was Frank. The last time… the last time she had spoken to him, begged him to listen… he hadn’t. But he had saved Matt from the Hand. And he had just saved her. He also had an enormous knife in his hand. He saw her eyes lock on the knife and held it away, his other hand out flat like one would approach a scared dog. “I just want to cut the tape, Miss Page, that’s all. Then maybe you’d like to get off the floor?” he asked, his voice blank of any emotion, but his eyes kept searching her, growing darker when they saw the burn mark at her collarbone, her bloodied knees, and her state of disarray.

Karen took a deep breath and the gasping scream stopped. She’d been the one making that noise, she realized now. Then she nodded at Frank, and he reached behind her, slitting the tape and ripping it off as quickly as possible. Karen immediately began to rub violently at her bloodstained cheek, stopping only when he grabbed her hands. “You’re going to make it worse,” he told her, his eyes locked on hers.

“Get. It. Off,” Karen gritted out between deep, still panicked breaths. He nodded, and pulled something out of his pocket. There was a tearing noise and then something wet and cold was gently brushing at her cheek and throat. A wet wipe, the Punisher walked around with wet wipes in his jacket, Karen thought and had the urge to laugh. She wanted to lean into his touch, wanted to take in every inch of his face, search him for any sign of injury. Instead, she shut her eyes and willed herself to stay still, to let him clean the blood of that abominable man off of her while she tried to come to terms with all that had just occurred. She tried to take another deep breath, but all she could smell was rapidly cooling blood, a metallic tang coupled with the other smells that accompanied death. It was a thick smell that seemed to coat her senses. Karen grimaced and shifted slightly, moving a touch closer to the man carefully cleaning her as she took shallower breaths. He shifted closer as well, gently brushing her hair over her shoulder to wipe away the blood on the curve where her throat met her shoulder. She could smell him then, still a little bloody, but with gunpowder and coffee, and a hint of something woodsy under the scents of blood and violence. It shouldn’t smell reassuring, but it did.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever see him again.

Karen’s eyes popped open and this time she didn’t stop herself from searching his face. He was less bruised than she had ever seen him, just one yellowing bruise beneath his left eye, a cut along the blade of his left cheekbone and at the corner of his full upper lip, and a scrape across the bridge of his nose. His high and tight haircut had grown out entirely and his hair was in messy thick waves to his ear lobes. She had an instant insane desire to run her fingers through the thick mass and push it back from his face. Straight dark brows were hooded over coffee brown eyes that were focused entirely on his task, although he did flick a glance her way as she stared at him.

“Good as it’s getting without actual soap and water, ma’am. We need to get a bandage on that burn too,” he murmured, the rough timbre of his voice rasping over her like a cat’s tongue. She shivered, a small sound escaping and he let out a rough, aborted growl, his trigger finger twitching rapidly. “With all respect, ma’am, what the hell were you thinking?” he bit out, eyes narrowing on her as he pulled her to her feet.

“Me? Me?! What about you?” Karen shot back, rage that she had tamped down for so long beginning to boil to the surface. “You vanished for four months!” she accused him, poking him in the chest, square in the center of the skull’s forehead.

“I was out there,” Frank said, blinking rapidly as he tried to take in Karen’s sudden change of demeanor.

“I know, I’ve been to the crime scenes! That isn’t what I meant!” Karen continued, throwing up her hands, ignoring the contemplative frown that crossed Frank’s face.

“I told you to stay away, to get away from me,” he said carefully, his hands raising slowly, palms up and out to the side.

“And then you rammed a truck into me! Into Ben’s car, the one he left me, Ben, one of the sweetest, kindest men I’ve ever known, and you took that from me! I know, I know, trying to get the Blacksmith. Bonus points because he was going to kill me and you stopped that, ohhh yes you did. By nearly killing me in process!” she continued, her voice raising, one hand slashing through the air to stop his potential protest. “In a car accident, a fucking car accident, just like my brother all over again, you stupid… stupid asshole! And then you vanished,” she finished, her fist and her forehead connecting with his chest at the same time with a soft thump.

“You told me I was dead to you,” Frank rumbled, his eyes straight forward and his hands still out to the side, uncertainty flickering across his face. This was not what he had expected.

Karen punched him, her fist driving into his side, and burst into tears. “I didn’t mean it,” she choked out before she punched him again, and then her hands fisted around the edges of his flak jacket just under his arms while sobs shook her body, the shock of the day and all the awful, wonderful, complicated emotions of seeing Frank again crashing down on her. She fully expected him to push her away from him and walk back into the shadows of night, and she wanted to hang on as long as she could, as useless and fucked up as she knew it was. Instead, after a moment of utter stillness, his arms wrapped around her, holding her loosely yet securely against him, her head tucked in against his throat while she shook and tears streamed down her face to burn into his flesh.

Frank knew he should be pushing her aside, walking away, and getting as far away from her as possible. He’d meant it when he’d told her to stay away from him, that she’d be better off away from all of this. He was the Punisher, and that meant there was no room for the hard knot in his stomach at her words, or whatever was unfurling in his chest as she cried against him. This was a mistake. He needed to push her away. The men who had taken her, had planned to torture and kill her were dead and she was smart enough to find her own way home. He needed to leave.

Yet here he was, arms wrapped around her, and his cheek nearly resting against her hair as she cried and shook. His mind kept playing over what she said, about how she hadn’t meant that he was dead to her, how he’d put her at serious risk, how… her brother? Fuck, he really was an asshole. Frank let out a heavy sigh, one hand moving up to stroke her hair, but stopping to hover above for a moment before falling back around her, still holding her against him. “You’re the only person I’m ever tempted to apologize to, ma’am,” he found himself saying, trying to keep any emotion from his voice and knowing he failed.

Karen took a shuddering breath, pressing her face to the slice of skin exposed by the collar of his jacket and shirt at his throat. She could feel him swallow, could feel how tense he was, how awkward his arms were around her. But he wasn’t pushing her away. “I don’t want your apology, Frank, just don’t ever do that to me again, don’t disappear without… without letting me…” Karen trailed off, not quite sure what she was trying to ask the vigilante who routinely went out into the night to brutally murder those on his list, the man who considered himself already dead, who courted actual death every moment. She just knew these past four months without any word from him, not knowing if he was hurt or dead until the next pile of bodies showed up, had been gut wrenching.

“My story ain’t gonna end well, ma’am, and we both know it,” Frank said quietly, bluntly. He needed to go, needed to get away before he dragged her any further into his awful, fucked up world. Even her light couldn’t last here, someone as good, as caring as Karen Page didn’t belong in the Punisher’s world.

“I don’t give a damn, just… just don’t,” she whispered, choking on the last word. She turned her head, still cradled on Frank’s shoulder, but staring off at the storage unit’s blood splattered walls as Shining Star continued to play in the background.

There was no training in the world for this. Frank felt like he was dying and being resurrected at the same time, torn in two very different directions. Almost of its own volition, Frank felt his head tilt slightly and then his cheek was pressed against her soft, silky hair as her tears still slid slowly to dampen his shirt, and he took a deep breath. She smelt like blood and lavender, and he knew he was doomed. “Okay,” he finally said.

She punched him again, this one made even weaker and less effective by her close proximity. “You better mean it,” she muttered and Frank nearly laughed.

“First thing we’re doing after you get patched up is work on your self-defense, because you might be the fastest woman in heels I’ve ever seen, but your punches are shit and you keep getting kidnapped,” he says, not sure if the feeling in his stomach was victory or defeat.

“They hit me with a car door, not sure even you could avoid getting kidnapped after that,” Karen defended herself, regretting it instantly when Frank dropped his arms and stepped back to examine her. The sudden loss left her breathless and a little unsteady, until he cupped a gentle hand under her elbow.

“We need to get you checked out, make sure nothing’s broken. C’mon, let’s go,” he urged, pulling her to where his vehicle was waiting, several hundred yards away under a broken street light, trying not to worry that she had broken ribs or internal bleeding.

“I’m just bruised, Frank. I don’t want a hospital, I just want to go home. Take me home, please.”

Karen sounded so tired, nearly swaying on her feet. Frank studied her for a moment before nodding. “Okay,” he found himself saying again. He’d take her home.


End file.
